Forgot about the $200 airline credit, which brings your net cost down to $150. Still think that it all depends how much you fly.
Although it’s absolutely worth it at least for the first year if you can meet the minimum spend and get the 60,000 (or 75,000 through the incognito trick) MR points. That’s enough points to get you at least a one way business class trip to Europe/Asia, easily worth thousands.
Could be worth it depends on how you use it. That $550 is tough, but you get $200 of Uber credit a year, so you’re looking at a net of $350. That all depends on how often you can use their lounges. I’d say if you can use them 5-6 times a year, it’s worth it. Their rewards program is good (and 5x back on airfare is nothing to sneeze at), but it’s only good if you’re already entrenched in the Membership Rewards program. The concierge service is pretty awesome too. I had a friend use his to get face value tickets to Hamilton without much issue.
I cancelled mine earlier this year because I’m too entrenched in Chase’s Ultimate Reward ecosystem to make use of MRs and only fly a few times a year so it didn’t make sense for me.
Also look into S&P 500 ETFs (SPDR is a good one). They trade like stocks and mirror the S&P 500 index. Buy some and forget about it. Guaranteed to go up in the long term, just look at the performance of the S&P 500 over the last 5/10/20 years. Just don’t sell when the economy inevitably tanks at some point in the future, because it will rebound.
Credit cards with annual fees can be worth it if the math lines up for you. For example: American Express’s Blue Cash Preferred has a $95 annual fee, but you earn 6% cash back at grocery stores, compared to their free Blue Cash card, which earns 3%. Simple math ($95/3%) says that if you spend more than $3,167 a year (about $264 a month) at grocery stores, it makes sense to get the card with the annual fee. Once you reach that $3,167 threshold, it’s free money. And that’s doesn’t even count the opening bonus.
Travel cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve have similar ways to offset their much higher annual fees. If I have the time, I’ll try and write a piece on credit cards this week/weekend.
Yeah I’m stoked. I recently moved and have a view of the whole eastern side of the city so I’m planning on hanging out on the balcony, cracking open some cold ones and enjoying the show without the massive crowd of people.
Hitting up happy hour tonight with a buddy before coming home to finally watch Solo. It’s Fleet Week in SF so tomorrow I’m watching the Blue Angels do their thing and then going to a coworker’s place to watch the McGregor fight. Sunday I’m going to the 49ers game and will be cheering twice as hard for them since I picked up their DEF on my fantasy team.
Don’t really care for my birthday either. It’s around Thanksgiving so I see family/friends during that time anyway. Last year, my girlfriend treated me with tickets to her company’s suite at Oracle for a Warriors game. Going to try and make that happen again this year.
This made me think of my friend – he got married in early 2016 and I was his best man. He lives 2,000 miles away and I’ve only seen him once since, last year, when he and his wife drove down from Iowa to visit me in Chicago when I was there for a few days. We rarely talk and he’s got a kid now so I’m sure he’s busy, but the time and distance apart doesn’t help stop growing apart. I should hit him up and see how he’s doing.
Just wait until you two start living together and start splitting everything. You can’t really decide “well, I’ll pay for groceries and you pay for internet and Netflix.” I mean you can, but it’s harder since some stuff is variable and some isn’t. Plus then there’s rent, which you usually pay with one check. It doesn’t really even itself out. It’s also harder if you two come from different financial situations (e.g. – one of you has some good money saved up, while the other is drowning in student debt).
Married is a whole different ballgame because by then you probably have a joint account for all the things, but until then, splitting everything kind of has to happen, otherwise one of you ends up resenting the other person.
My girlfriend and I split everything 60/40; 60 on me because I make more than her. Twice a month, we sit down and figure out who owes how much and Zelle the other person money. It’s worked out pretty damn well for over a year now.
I think it depends on where you go and your circle of friends. Obviously overtly racist, etc. stuff is off limits as it should be. But given the insanity of what’s going on college campuses these days, I don’t think that rules that are that strict should be abided by.
I think one additional guideline for dressing up for Halloween post-grad is that there’s way less pressure to wear politically correct costumes. Just don’t do a couples costume of Christine Ford and Brett Kavanaugh.
I’ve had my “Hide Yo Kids Hide Yo WiFi” as my network name for about 5 years now and refuse to change it because doing so will require re-configuring way too many devices.
It sounds like your friends have turned into Social Justice Warriors. I’m sorry, there’s usually no going back once that happens. If you don’t conform with their complaining and skewed world view, you’ll continue to feel left out and be shunned.
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Yeah I thought #MeToo was supposed to fix this shit.
*prepares for downvotes*
Forgot about the $200 airline credit, which brings your net cost down to $150. Still think that it all depends how much you fly.
Although it’s absolutely worth it at least for the first year if you can meet the minimum spend and get the 60,000 (or 75,000 through the incognito trick) MR points. That’s enough points to get you at least a one way business class trip to Europe/Asia, easily worth thousands.
Could be worth it depends on how you use it. That $550 is tough, but you get $200 of Uber credit a year, so you’re looking at a net of $350. That all depends on how often you can use their lounges. I’d say if you can use them 5-6 times a year, it’s worth it. Their rewards program is good (and 5x back on airfare is nothing to sneeze at), but it’s only good if you’re already entrenched in the Membership Rewards program. The concierge service is pretty awesome too. I had a friend use his to get face value tickets to Hamilton without much issue.
I cancelled mine earlier this year because I’m too entrenched in Chase’s Ultimate Reward ecosystem to make use of MRs and only fly a few times a year so it didn’t make sense for me.
Robin Hood?
Also look into S&P 500 ETFs (SPDR is a good one). They trade like stocks and mirror the S&P 500 index. Buy some and forget about it. Guaranteed to go up in the long term, just look at the performance of the S&P 500 over the last 5/10/20 years. Just don’t sell when the economy inevitably tanks at some point in the future, because it will rebound.
Credit cards with annual fees can be worth it if the math lines up for you. For example: American Express’s Blue Cash Preferred has a $95 annual fee, but you earn 6% cash back at grocery stores, compared to their free Blue Cash card, which earns 3%. Simple math ($95/3%) says that if you spend more than $3,167 a year (about $264 a month) at grocery stores, it makes sense to get the card with the annual fee. Once you reach that $3,167 threshold, it’s free money. And that’s doesn’t even count the opening bonus.
Travel cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve have similar ways to offset their much higher annual fees. If I have the time, I’ll try and write a piece on credit cards this week/weekend.
I’m willing to bet that what actually happened was that Betsi wasn’t as attractive in real life as her pictures made her out to be.
Yeah I’m stoked. I recently moved and have a view of the whole eastern side of the city so I’m planning on hanging out on the balcony, cracking open some cold ones and enjoying the show without the massive crowd of people.
Hitting up happy hour tonight with a buddy before coming home to finally watch Solo. It’s Fleet Week in SF so tomorrow I’m watching the Blue Angels do their thing and then going to a coworker’s place to watch the McGregor fight. Sunday I’m going to the 49ers game and will be cheering twice as hard for them since I picked up their DEF on my fantasy team.
Don’t really care for my birthday either. It’s around Thanksgiving so I see family/friends during that time anyway. Last year, my girlfriend treated me with tickets to her company’s suite at Oracle for a Warriors game. Going to try and make that happen again this year.
This made me think of my friend – he got married in early 2016 and I was his best man. He lives 2,000 miles away and I’ve only seen him once since, last year, when he and his wife drove down from Iowa to visit me in Chicago when I was there for a few days. We rarely talk and he’s got a kid now so I’m sure he’s busy, but the time and distance apart doesn’t help stop growing apart. I should hit him up and see how he’s doing.
Thanks for a wonderful article, Madoff.
Girl would totally be down for a threesome. Grow some balls and make it happen, Todd.
Just wait until you two start living together and start splitting everything. You can’t really decide “well, I’ll pay for groceries and you pay for internet and Netflix.” I mean you can, but it’s harder since some stuff is variable and some isn’t. Plus then there’s rent, which you usually pay with one check. It doesn’t really even itself out. It’s also harder if you two come from different financial situations (e.g. – one of you has some good money saved up, while the other is drowning in student debt).
Married is a whole different ballgame because by then you probably have a joint account for all the things, but until then, splitting everything kind of has to happen, otherwise one of you ends up resenting the other person.
My girlfriend and I split everything 60/40; 60 on me because I make more than her. Twice a month, we sit down and figure out who owes how much and Zelle the other person money. It’s worked out pretty damn well for over a year now.
The network name predates my PGP account.
I think it depends on where you go and your circle of friends. Obviously overtly racist, etc. stuff is off limits as it should be. But given the insanity of what’s going on college campuses these days, I don’t think that rules that are that strict should be abided by.
I think one additional guideline for dressing up for Halloween post-grad is that there’s way less pressure to wear politically correct costumes. Just don’t do a couples costume of Christine Ford and Brett Kavanaugh.
I’ve had my “Hide Yo Kids Hide Yo WiFi” as my network name for about 5 years now and refuse to change it because doing so will require re-configuring way too many devices.
It sounds like your friends have turned into Social Justice Warriors. I’m sorry, there’s usually no going back once that happens. If you don’t conform with their complaining and skewed world view, you’ll continue to feel left out and be shunned.
This is probably the saddest thing you’ve ever written.
That could be interpreted as you either care a lot about him…or you enjoy intentionally inflicting pain upon yourself.